Narcy Novack Trial: Accused Widow Says She May Also Have Been Killers' Target
Narcy Novack says that she, too, was a likely target of the killers.
April 13, 2012— -- The woman accused of murdering her hotel heir husband and conspiring to kill her 87-year-old mother-in-law, said that she, too, was a likely target of the killers, and that investigators have yet to prove that her husband is actually dead.
Narcy Novack, a 53-year-old former stripper, is preparing to stand trial for hiring hit men to murder her millionaire husband, whose father built Miami Beach's famed Fountainebleau Hotel, and her heiress mother-in-law. The FBI alleges that Narcy Novack, who has denied any involvement in the slayings, killed twice, stole, laundered money and conspired to murder again in an elaborate plot hatched along with her brother to gain her husband's $10 million estate.
Novack this week told New York's Journal News in a phone interview -- which her lawyer was reportedly unaware of -- that police cannot prove that her husband is dead, even though investigators said there was no question that three years ago Ben Novack Jr. was bludgeoned and stabbed to death inside a New York hotel suite.
"One of my questions is: Is my husband dead, is my husband alive? And they don't have that answer. … We have not touched the tip of the iceberg," she told the newspaper.
Novack told police she was at breakfast on July 12, 2009, when she came back to the hotel suite she shared with her husband in Rye Brook, N.Y., to find him bound and gagged.
"I walked in and I tripped on something and I realized that he was on the floor, and that he did not look like Ben," she said, adding that she could have been a victim, too, had she been there at the time. "At the last moment, my plan changed. For the grace of God, I left the room."
Investigators allege that Novack opened the door to the hotel suite and let three assailants slip in. They then allegedly bound Ben Novack and bludgeoned him with a dumbbell. Then Narcy Novack allegedly gave them a pillow to muffle his screams, and even allegedly ordered the attackers to gouge out her husband's eyes. She also allegedly tried to make it look like a robbery, and the next day stole more than $100,000 from his business, according to police.
In the interview with the Journal News, Novack said that she had never met the accused hit men, Alejandro Garcia and Joel Gonzalez, and theorized that investigators had conspired to frame her for the murder.
"My defense is to prove I did nothing," Novack told the Journal News, which covers New York's Westchester, Putnam and Rockland counties.
The case made instant tabloid headlines, as Ben Novack's father built the legendary Miami Beach Fountainebleau, a familiar backdrop from movies like "Scarface" and "Goldfinger." Narcy Novack stood to inherit an empire that included Ben Novak's millions in real estate, cars, jewelry and one of the world's largest collections of Batman memorabilia, including the original Batmobile.
In an indictment filed a little more than a year ago, Novack was also charged with arranging the April 2009 attack on her husband's 87-year-old mother, Bernice Novack, who was found dead in her Fort Lauderdale home. Initially, authorities ruled Bernice Novack's death an accident caused by a series of falls, but the octogenarian's niece Meredith Fiel and her mother demanded that the medical examiner reopen the case.
"We knew my aunt did not have a series of falls as the medical examiner suggested. My aunt was vibrant," said Fiel.
Narcy Novack denies involvement in that crime too.
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